


Perfect System

by dreamlittleyo



Category: Tron (Movies), Tron - All Media Types, Tron: Legacy (2010)
Genre: Circuit Sex, Circuit Touching, First Kiss, Kissing, M/M, Program Sex, Romance, Wordcount: 1.000-3.000, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000, Wordcount: 100-2.000, Wordcount: Over 1.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-08
Updated: 2011-04-08
Packaged: 2017-10-17 18:19:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/179823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamlittleyo/pseuds/dreamlittleyo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pre-Tron: Legacy. A moment between two programs. Imagining the perfect system.<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	Perfect System

When Clu imagines his perfect system, Tron is always there.

The world they're creating together isn't an empty one. Countless programs perform innumerable functions across an expansive Grid—one that could someday go on forever.

The world Clu is meant to create—the system he will shape—encompasses every one of those programs. He watches them all, equations in a sprawling midnight of possibilities, and the glowing patterns of power that line his body pulse brighter with the excitement of all that potential.

Some programs don't remember a time before a User named Kevin Flynn stepped onto the Grid and changed all the rules. At this point it might even be more accurate to say _most_ of them don't remember. Too many cycles have come and gone, too many old and new programs along with them.

Clu himself only remembers because Kevin Flynn included the knowledge in his original programming.

Tron remembers because he has always fought for the Users.

In a lot of ways—maybe in every way that counts—Tron is the only reason Clu exists.

It's been twelve point two millicycles since Kevin Flynn's most recent departure, leaving instructions in his wake as he always does. It will be at least sixty millicycles more before he returns to the Grid. Time passes differently in the two worlds. This, too, Clu knows only thanks to his programming. He will never see the world outside the Grid, therefore he will never experience the disparity for himself.

There is more than enough work to do in the interim. The Grid and all its potential spread out before him, and letting his eyes take in the spires of light—the relay towers that twist upward, the blinking memory terminals that rise behind them, the loops and circuits and constant glow—he imagines the system he will mold from this bright foundation.

Flawless order. Perfect. Precise. Beautiful in its boundless symmetry. He'll watch over it proudly.

He won't watch over it alone.

"What are you looking at?"

Tron's approach is so soundless that he might have startled a less observant program. As it is, Clu simply lets a corner of his mouth turn up in a wry smile. He flexes his fingers around the railing before him—horizontal bars lit from within by lustrous blue light—and turns his eyes away from the flashing, glittering horizon to look directly at Tron.

Tron's own power pulses a more muted rhythm—regular, bright to dim to bright again. A healthy energy level that shows not just in the circuiting lines on his body but also in the easy smile on his face.

"Nothing," Clu says. A gust of air from somewhere below courses up to the edge where they stand and blows past them, ruffles the hair on their heads and whistles away.

"You looked awfully pensive to be staring at nothing."

"I was just thinking," Clu admits. "We have so much to do. Sometimes I like to imagine what it will be like in the end, when we've accomplished everything we hope to achieve."

"It will be beautiful," Tron says, and Clu watches unashamedly as Tron's eyes cast out across the current limits of the Grid.

"Yes," Clu agrees without taking his eyes off of Tron.

Tron turns back to him then, familiar mischief on his face, and asks, "What do you see when you imagine it?"

"Infinite order," Clu says, and though he tries to keep his voice casual he can't keep the shadow of reverence from creeping into his words. "Circling up and out in every direction, even beneath the Grid. Structure and harmony and absolute perfection."

Tron's face slowly loses its glint of mischief, his expression shifting to quiet awe.

They stare at each other through the span of a fraction of a nanocycle, though it feels infinitely longer.

"I wish I could see it as vividly as you do," Tron says, finally shattering the silence. He's leaned further into Clu's space, or maybe it's Clu that's edged closer, but there's a quiet electrical charge building in the air between them, soft and humming and blue.

"I could show you," says Clu.

He moves without waiting for a response. He barely needs to take a full step to put himself where he needs to be—face to face with Tron, so close their noses are nearly touching. That blue thrum of power between them is stronger now, and Clu raises his hand, palm forward.

The glow begins at his fingertips, soft and faint but spreading quickly. Down his fingers, along his palm and the back of his hand, past his wrist—and then as suddenly as it began, it explodes outward. Pinpoints of light circle around them, fuzzy and indistinct at first, then settling into the shapes that Clu wills into being. Sharp edges, smooth spirals, arcing and smoothing into an intricate network that completely surrounds them.

It's nothing but an optical illusion. Just calculated points of brightness that fool the eye—that make a mural painted in light look like the distant glow of a cityscape. But it captures his vision well enough, a snapshot of the perfection they've slowly begun to build.

Tron takes in the sight with unconcealed awe. He turns a full circle, tilting his head back to see the illusion extend above them, and when he completes his rotation he hasn't put any extra distance between them.

"This is what you see?" Tron asks. Somber. Sincere.

"Every time I close my eyes," says Clu.

What Tron does next confuses Clu more than anything the distracting security program has ever done or said before. Tron closes the electric sliver of distance between them, and presses their mouths together in a way that seems at once foreign and unexpectedly familiar. Tron's lips are an intimate press of warmth against his own, and Clu feels the delicate illusion he's been maintaining shatter and cascade into nothingness around them.

He doesn't mind the loss of the illusion. He's a little more interested in the brief shift of Tron's lips against his, the sensations it ignites along his skin.

But Tron is already pulling back. The light of mischief is back in his eyes.

"What exactly was that?" Clu asks, but already he's delving into the more distant recesses of his memory banks, searching for the answer.

"I don't know what it's called," Tron admits, and now he looks a little sheepish. "It's something a friend once showed me."

For some reason the thought of Tron doing… whatever that was with someone else sends an unpleasant shudder rifling through Clu's subroutines.

He's found what he's looking for, though. Buried in the back of his memory, along with his redundant backup systems and several other files he's never had reason to access. Knowledge that Kevin Flynn left inside him not by design, but rather by consequence of the way Clu was created.

"It's called a kiss," Clu says. Tron looks at him strangely for a moment, quiet confusion, then his expression smoothes out and he nods as though he understands. He probably does. He is, after all, the only other program in existence who knows Clu's true origins.

"A kiss," Tron repeats. Testing the word on his tongue, he looks both curious and oddly satisfied.

"Yes," says Clu. "A kiss. _To_ kiss. Kissing. You kissed me."

"Did you like it?" Tron asks. His expression is guileless and terrifyingly sincere.

Clu could answer with words, but he opts for a more direct approach.

The curious press of lips feels just as good the second time—better, perhaps, because Clu no longer finds himself hampered by surprise. He raises both his hands to Tron's face, tilts the security program's head just so, decides he likes this angle better. Tron's hands seem to vacillate, unsure where to settle, until finally they land at Clu's waist—a heavy touch, as though Tron is bracing himself with the contact.

Clu uses the weight of his own body and gives an extra push, thrilling at the rush of control he feels when Tron gives ground. One step, then two, then they're up against the railing and Clu can press his whole body against Tron. He can open himself to the flow of power, can feel Tron doing the same, and they connect like a circuit, power and sensation and bright electricity. Clu parts his lips, feels Tron's mouth open beneath his, and it feels like the only natural thing to slip his tongue forward—to taste and feel and explore.

In a small corner of his consciousness—a point of awareness that's dim and growing dimmer as the rush of energy and touch between them overloads his senses—Clu realizes their bodies have both transitioned from their usual constant, quiet glow into something far brighter. The light is so intense now that it stings through his eyelids, a mounting explosion that keeps pulsing brighter and hotter.

When the light overtakes him, it whites out the world. He feels a hot, piercing pleasure at his core, blistering satisfaction where he's opened himself to Tron, where the power pours through and between them unchecked. He hears a hoarse scream, wonders only belatedly if that's his own voice he's hearing.

He decides quickly that it doesn't matter.

He loses track of time.

The world is slow to settle back into place. Sound comes first: the quiet whisper of wind, the ever-present hum of the Grid beneath them, the still nameless city going about its business. Then touch: chill at his back, warmth pressed pleasantly along his front, ground firm beneath his feet. Sight seems to be on a delay, then he realizes his eyes are closed and he blinks them open—sees the glinting, glowing horizon so very far below.

He's still crushing Tron against the railing, all but wrapped around him.

"That was…" Tron pauses as though struggling to find the word. "Intense."

Clu reluctantly lets go and steps back.

The moment is too heavy, and he forces himself to crack a smile.

"Did you like it?" Clu asks.

His deliberate mimicry garners the chuckle he was hoping for, and then Tron pushes away from the railing and steps in close. He stands there, not doing anything but _looking_ , and Clu wonders if he should say something more.

Then the moment passes, and Tron is turning towards the city again, casting his eyes over the horizon with renewed purpose.

"We have work to do," he says.

"You're right," says Clu. He turns his back to the railing and moves away from the edge, back towards their waiting cycles. "Come on."

Tron follows, and Clu closes his eyes and imagines his perfect system.


End file.
